


Run and Go

by quietcrushing



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, I got music you should listen to when reading this check the notes thANKS, I had fun with this and genuinely just wanna put it up somewhere, Italian Mafia, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 20:23:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20233822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietcrushing/pseuds/quietcrushing
Summary: Butcher has been on the run from the mafia for a while now, and she finally realized she can't keep doing this.





	Run and Go

**Author's Note:**

> Alright I might actually post more of this at some point but I don't know anyway, I got some songs for y'all to listen to when reading this if you would be so kind.  
Run and Go- twentyone pilots  
LA Devotee- Panic!At the Disco  
Guide to Success-Joe Iconis

Butcher was paranoid. More so than lately. Ever since she took that quick little “vacation” she hasn’t been herself. Of course it wasn’t an actual vacation it was more of a, “I’m going to run away from my coworkers in order to protect them from the horrible murderous organization I have after me” trip. One of those classic, lovely little ventures. Now this would normally be insane for people to hear, according to the bartender at Madge’s. She was a sweet woman, her name wasn’t actually Madge. It was actually Midge, but they messed up her neon sign and she was not paying to replace it, so Madge it was. Butcher asked her if she felt like she was lying, using a fake name to run a business. Midge said it wasn’t so much of a lie as a mistake. Butcher decided that’s what she would call this.

A mistake, not a lie. It was her mistake that she moved to New Mexico, it was her mistake that she became a mercenary in a remote (shoddy) base in the middle of a desert, it was her mistake that she murdered several members of the mafia who had finally hunted her down.

Her mistake. Not a lie.

After all, whose fault is it if they didn’t check the legitimacy of the death certificate? They just attended the funeral, paid their respects in the barest way possible, subtly threatening her old folks in the process. Now she lived with mercenaries, nine of them, in the middle of a desert. Ironically, she felt safer. Men tend to scare away women and have a rather intimidating aura surrounding them, but Butcher? Butcher was raised by pranksters and a family whose blood was as thick as a room of them all. Men carrying expensive machinery, displaying skill and accuracy, feeling absolutely alive on a battlefield of killing? What, was she supposed to be scared? It felt like home.

But then she started to get too comfortable, with the new life and new location. Friends she could actually call that, without them trying to rip her tongue out of her mouth or slit her throat, no no, actual friends who at this point decided to treat her as more of a sister/daughter. Not both at the same time, but they had more of a...familial bond at that point. In fact the night where Butcher called one of them fratello, was the night she was stopped outside of the grocery store. Black pinstripe suits, slicked back dark hair, hats covering up the greasy locks and expensive shiny shoes absorbing the stubborn New Mexico sun. They wasted no time taking her into an alley. She tried so desperately to explain she was working on the debt. Then they asked about the death certificate.

“It was for my parents,” she lied, palms sweaty, “This way they didn’t have to keep paying ridiculous fees for having a daughter who has no chance of getting wed! Put the money towards their own debts.”

Admirable. They called her admirable for faking her death at eighteen years of age and moving away to New Mexico, to become a mercenary. But they weren’t gonna let her off, no angel of mercy never shows up to Butcher’s life. They came to collect their dues, and she knew she had to pay them. So she said by tomorrow night, not even hearing their original option of a week. She ran off, breaking into the duller mercenaries’ bank accounts, to no avail.

So she packed up, and marched right up to Pauling who she called up to the base. Spy was smoking out back, holding open the door for Butcher as Pauling frantically abandoned her moped. The younger of the two handed the other her resignation, to which Pauling refused. However, Butcher was insistent, always has been, and forced the damn paperwork onto Pauling. Spy had gone inside the second Butcher stepped outside thankfully, and now the two women had many, many frustrations to take out on each other. After a broken nose was delivered to the raven haired woman, and a split lip was marked on the brunette, the two finally calmed down a bit. Mainly from exhaustion, but neither would ever admit it.

“You realize...once you leave the premises, I’ll have to hunt you down? We can’t let information get out Butcher.”

The brunette dusted herself off, sighing and pulling out a cigarette.

“Nothing personal just business, I know the deal.” Pauling rose up onto her knees from her spot on the ground, and Butcher lunged forward, shoving Pauling’s face into the pavement and quickly throwing down a bottle of aspirin. The brunette landed herself a moped and was off in the distance before Pauling could get to the alarm. Contracts were given to all of the mercenaries the next day, under order for finding Butcher and returning her to base, dead or alive. Of course this raised a few questions among the mercenaries but Miss Pauling only answered Scout’s. “She’s not your friend anymore.”

Now this couldn’t be any more false. Butcher had left the base, in order to save the mercenaries. If any of them knew that, she would be going back to Pauling dead. “Full grown men don’t need a little girl protecting them, got it Scout?” She let out a loud exhale from her nose, a small smile gracing her lips as she set up an elaborate net trap, that would trigger once they opened the door to this shitty shack she set up. It was a good joke. Scout was more feminine than her which, when thinking about it, wasn’t good for either of them was it? No it wasn’t.

Then again, it always wasn’t good that Butcher was capturing the man she had been pining after for years now. The tommy gun left a spray adjacent to him and he yelled from his spot in the trap. Butcher leaned over her little barricade and frantically apologized to the older Australian man. Her hands were quick to get him out of the trap, fingers grazing his bare forearms, his sides where the vest didn’t touch, and even his calves which strained against the fabric of his pants. She contained herself fairly well and handed him his hat as he sat up from the trap. Looking around her little murder cabin, he whistled and complimented her trapping skills. The laugh that left her lips was genuine, and his chuckle was music to her ears. Looking up at him she couldn’t help the way her guard was let down. He never experienced such fear from an affiliation. He lives his own life. A free one. He lived among the wild Australian outback, and even now he had his own space, a home. Sure it was a loose term, but he wasn’t chained like she was. Perhaps that why she fancied him so. “Why did you resign and why am I here to drag you back?” Her guard was right back up and she immediately pulled out a small pistol, holding it a fair distance from Sniper. Warning him, a tone of resentment in her voice, he took his leave. Not before making an empty promise to Butcher. “You can’t tell anyone.”

Sniper didn’t want to be considered a liability, and he sure as hell wasn't ready to lose his job. Once he got outside, he took the camper to the closest diner. Food was shit, but there was a payphone there. Miss Pauling scribbled down the location that Sniper had described to her and was there the next night, not triggering a single trap. But mainly because Butcher had the barrel of a tommy gun pointed at the door the second Pauling opened it. The assistant tried to trick her, lure back to base to deal with paperwork over this “training” exercise, but Butcher is insistent. Pauling opted to pulling out a pistol, before asking why the resignation. “I made a dumb mistake years ago, and now I’m gonna have to pay the cost. I’d rather not have you guys suffer collateral.” Pauling didn’t appear it, but she was fairly shocked. Butcher seemed to enjoy messing with the mercenaries’ emotions. So why would she be so concerned about them suddenly?

Pauling then saw the look in Butcher’s eyes. No usual bloodlust or tiredness, but full alertness and a level of calm to it too. She didn’t want to see them hurt, by the mafia, Pauling discovered shortly after. The mafia who needed her to pay off a seven year car deficiency. So Pauling allowed Butcher a full return, if she doesn’t die. After a long night of chucking molotov cocktails, using the spray and pray method, and chopping off a man’s hand, Butcher returned to Tuefort. Her hair was on fire, clothes were wrecked, along with her being full of bullet holes. She didn’t care for a visit to Medic’s office however. No, rather she walked into the base’s kitchen and dosed her head in the sink; quickly grabbing a bottle of rum from the poker table and chugging half while applying the rest to her wounds.

That night was the start of Butcher’s worst. That’s at least how she looks at it. Even now as she sits in a bar, thirty miles away from home, addiction becomes clearer and clearer as she disassociates to some Bowie song. “Some vacation that was…” Then Butcher hears the doors to the bar swing open. She looks over to see a familiar a familiar shade of red. His hands are gripping her biceps tightly, trying to shake her from her drunken state. Though he means well, he only makes her feel worse as he shouted about Pauling. Finally she slaps his cheeks together, asking him, quite loudly, to slow it down.

He explains Pauling had a meeting that went south, and when they went to deal with it, a few of them were rather stuck at an impasse. Butcher worries about this, due to the fact the mercenaries are quite fond of Pauling because she is their boss. Not because Pauling was a voice of reason she enjoyed the company of. Never. She insists that Scout take her to the base, despite the fact she had “quit for real” that time. The two have to ride on a moped; unfortunate for Scout but fortunate for Butcher. She has to sober up, as quickly as possible. What better way to do so than hurl up all in your system?

As the two show up to Tuefort, Butcher stumbles in, pushing Scout to get her to the meeting room. The blind trust of a drunken Butcher might have been a good time to collect the bounty on her head, but Scout wasn’t horrible. Not enough to kill a drunken coworker for cash. So Butcher goes home, home to a meeting room full of cigar and cigarette smoke with multiple accents clouding the air. Once she walks in the door, boy did they not take to kindly to it. Immediately Soldier starts the bizarre accusations on her, blaming her for the sudden disappearance of Miss Pauling.

And despite Scout’s best efforts to calm him down, Butcher decides if she’s gonna get screamed at she may as well get honest too. “Yea-it’s my, it is my-fault. My fault. Sorry. Where are they keeping her?”

A quick moment of silence is quickly followed by her approaching the planning table. Then something happens. Something unbeknownst to Butcher, as it does come from behind. But she could surmise, it’s likely the butt end of a gun that is lodged into the back of her head, with the force of a trained killer. In rapid succession, her body falls to the ground, but not before her chin hits the edge of their meeting room table. The bloody taste fills her mouth as the darkness fully envelopes her senses. Luckily, she doesn’t feel the impact of her body hitting the ground. She lays there on the ground, at the feet of a familiar, more friendly pinstripe suit.

He sighs heavily, as the Australian questions his actions. Not angry, just somewhat confused from the sound of it. He simply replies because of her intoxication, Butcher wouldn’t be of any help to them. Scout, much less calm than Sniper in that moment, gestures to Demoman while shouting something along the thoughts of there has always been a drunk, what’s one more? The Frenchman’s glare is cold as he looks towards his son. Scout, visibly, falters a bit. His straightened posture hunches a bit, and his foot positioning goes from out to in. But he’s quick. He regains his previous posture, and sees no issue in jabbing his pointer finger into Spy’s chest, pushing to the point that if his knuckles had not already popped, they surely would have. Spy is quick to remove the younger man’s hand from his suit, swatting it away like it was nothing, before approaching the table again, oh so delicately stepping over Butcher’s body.

“She will be up soon, I’m sure. Now back to business.”

He wasn’t wrong. Within the hour Butcher is back up. Not with a start though, all her movements are slow but not very calculated. She forces her palms into the ground, groaning as she elevates from her level on the floor. The pounding in her head is hard to ignore, but she manages. At least long enough to make a cup of coffee. She returns to the currently abandoned meeting table. After a solid half hour of trying to decipher the meaning of the figures, the notes and photos, and nursing her coffee, she finally understands. Now she is off with a start. Frantically cursing and rushing off to her old barracks, gearing up. Much to her dismay, her old shirts don’t fit quite as well in the gut area, but she ignores it for the moment. The matter at hand was much worse.

A new arms dealer has entered the area. Their stuff was top notch, usually expensive. But the dealers have theirs at a “markdown” price that you just can’t refuse. Pauling was invited to come do business at some new Italian restaurant, so she attended. Cheap and decent weapons? She knows the Administrator would appreciate it. So when she’s sitting down at a table with a rather stout man, drinking expensive wine imported from Napoli, and politely declining the pasta placed in front of her, she doesn’t expect the man to chuckle. “Don’t worry, I would neva disrespect my dear niece’s cooking enough to poison, please have some. Promise you won’t regret it.” The man wasn’t new to suspicion. After all, even though nobody ever said anything, he knew the rumors around him. His car dealership was really a chop shop, his family restaurant was the base of operations, the flower shop had a secret gun room. Anybody who raised those suspicions, he made sure they next thing they might raise from was a grave. Pauling still refused the food, causing him to pause in his eating. He cleaned himself up and asked for his employee to take the plates away.

Business time, they both knew that. Pauling began pulling out a file but the mob leader held up a hand. He politely asked her to wait as a manila folder was laid out before them. He opened up the folder and laid out several photos and documents. Pauling immediately recognized the brunette. Every photo being from her teenage years or in the past two weeks in which she left Tuefort.

“You seen this girl?”

Pauling believed her lying herself, so she’s not quite sure how they saw through it. Perhaps they knew more than she let on. Even then, she blames herself for not putting up more of a fight. Now she sits in the back of a limousine, in between two pinstriped men, staring at a mafia boss who sips at champagne. He rambles on about how Butcher wronged him, then went off and killed his two precious nephews, one of his sons-in-laws and a great nephew. So now she had to pay. Pauling wishes to retort with, what money, but sadly the rag stuffed in her mouth prevented that. The car eventually comes to a stop and gunfire was raining outside. The many different voices were easily recognizable from their accents, and she for once feels relieved they came for her. But then the car starts up and takes off quicker than one would expect a limousine to move. Her body jolted but she manages to stay seated. A loud explosion sounds off behind them and Pauling whips her head around, straining to look out the back window. However, it’s tinted beyond all belief. There was no way in hell she was going to make out what was happening. Which maybe isn’t such a bad thing.

Their truck was blown to shit, and the men were frantically yelling at each other as they fought. Blame was thrown about as to who left the guard of the truck. Scout insists Soldier butchered it, to which Soldier corrects him by saying Butcher was not with them. Engineer simply examines the wreckage with Spy, the latter smoking roughly his third pack that day. They easily surmised it was beyond repair.

“So now that raises the question if we’re walkin’ back?” Spy decides to walkie in to Sniper, who refuses to let them all cram into the camper. Spy raises the idea of not all of them, just a select few. The Frenchman can’t hear the sharpshooters response, as a loud car horn blares from down the road.

The men watch as Spy’s car comes flying by, a maniac looking woman behind the wheel, hitting two mafia members that Scout pushed in the way of the car. The two bodies go flying over the entire car and Spy shouts after the car. In the comms he hears a woman’s voice respond to him.

“I promise I’ll pay you back for all damages.”

The fact that any was not included in there, worried Spy. Because this meant her plan was to total the car.

Her comms went off with loud French yelling, quickly followed by Southern yelling, then a calm Russian voice. Butcher only responded to the last of them, saying sorry and she hopes they can forgive her for all the trouble. Then the limousine came into view, and Butcher presses that gas pedal into the ground. The car flies forward, and she manages to steer it slightly to the right. She quickly gains ground on the limo, and manages to get right next to them.

So she does the logical thing.

As she rams into them, men start leaning out the windows. Guns are sprayed in her direction and she curses Spy’s choice in cars. Quickly, she reaches over and grabs a smoke grenade. Pulling the pin with her teeth, she chucks it in a window. Thankfully it lands and she grins, unbuckling her seatbelt, she then watches as the car slows down and slams the gas steering up to the large bump in the road up ahead. Then she makes a sharp turn.

And the car is in the air. Flipping and twirling over the limousine, causing Butcher’s body to land on the end of the car. Thankfully, miraculously, the stolen vehicle lands upright.

Butcher applauds herself but it’s short lived as a spray of bullets goes through the roof.

For her not to be hit is a miracle!

But two miracles don’t happen in one day.

She pulls the tommy gun from her back and shoots where the bullets pierced through the roof of the car. Then she makes her way up front and shoots down. The car stops abruptly, and her body goes flying onto the road, skidding and bleeding profusely now. She stumbles up to her feet and groans, colors suddenly just blobbing and her eyes feel awfully heavy all of the sudden.

The staticy voice in her ear is much too loud, so she throws it away. Forcing herself to her feet for the second time that day, she approaches the limousine. She spots a door open, and peeks inside the vehicle. Three sons, one grandson, and a lapdog. A literal lapdog. That one will weigh on her conscious a bit more than the others. But no Pauling, and no father.

“So you wielded your attack fist…” Butcher whips around to spot the boss, holding Pauling in a headlock, the barrel of a rather handsome looking gun resting against her temple. She goes to reach for her gun only to realize the old thing went flying further than she did. “And now you’re on the blacklist! Ya know that?”

Panic starts to set in. Butcher is without a weapon and Miss Pauling looks rather beaten up. A bullet or three definitely got her in the shoot-out. Now her conscious was really gonna weigh heavy. 

"Tell me, honey, was it worth it?”

They’re moving closer now. They’re practically right in front of her, and she can’t help the way she backs up into the car. Her old boss grins and takes the gun away from Pauling’s temple, and Butcher believes that he may have a rare moment of mercy in that moment. But the gun is now pointing at her thigh, where a bullet quickly piercing through her pants and into her thigh. She falls down to the ground for the third time that day.

“Does it feel as good…” Butcher is pressing her hands to thigh, trying so hard to keep some blood in her body. Then metal lands on her chin, and tilts up her chin up with the rather beautiful gun in his hand. “As you thought it would?”

She believes she finally understands what he’s saying to her. Running away from her problems. Trying to save herself from a life trapped in an organized crime family, did that feel good? At that moment, regret began to set in. Should she have just paid the price back then? Would it have been easier to let go when she was younger? Surely less people would have gotten hurt.

Then that thing that Medic talks about happened. Her heavy, profusely leaking body, suddenly felt fine. She felt warm, ungodly warm, so much so that it hurt now if she didn’t move. But she knows if she moves in this moment, she can kiss goodbye to everyone and everything. But then a sudden poke to her waist jolts her back into reality. She forgot about that. So she slowly reaches back for it, as the boss rambles on about the true meaning of family business.

Pauling looks rather furious, and attempts to kick at the mob boss. So he turns his attention to her. His gaze is rather annoyed. He stands back up straight, and pushes her against the car, her body landing there with a loud thud. The ridiculing of Pauling’s position in life begins, how the assistant of a mercenary organization was so easy to kidnap. Then the misogyny starts, going on about how killing is a man’s job. Women shouldn’t dirty their hands and that is Miss Pauling was willing, he could take her away from it all. That little graze of fingertips up her arm, causes Butcher to move faster than any dying woman has in their last few moments.

She charges the man and throws him off Miss Pauling, pinning him to the ground. She straddles his waist and throws her arms up and behind her, lodging her meat cleaver right in his face.

One, two, four, seven, twelve, eighteen, twenty five.

Twenty five years of hell, living in fear of his horrible organization. By the time she’s done, the knife can’t even leave the place in his face. He’s still twitching under her, she forces herself off his body and leaned over, spitting on the corpse.

Walking back to Pauling, she undoes the ties on her arms, and removes the gag in her mouth. Pauling stares at her, breathing heavily and Butcher feels her adrenaline rush begin to dull. Pauling sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. She leads the bleeding woman back to the stolen vehicle. Thankfully it still starts up, and the two drive back to the mercs, who apparently opted for waiting there. Pauling slows to a stop, a deep frown on her face and then she parks the car.

Medic immediately walks over to the passenger side and Heavy is quick to pull Butcher out of the car. The change from sitting to lying down was a quick one for her. She groans and Pauling stands over her, fingers tapping at her lips as Medic begins to work on the younger woman. Then the lecturing starts. Pauling begins going on about how Butcher could have died, the fact that the mercenaries were always put at risk, the location was put at risk, this could have all ended disastrously. Butcher’s voice doesn’t feel like her own when her lips finally part and her response comes out.

“But it didn’t. I told you, either I was dying or they were. No other options.”

Pauling blinks down at the brunette as Medic lets out a small chuckle at the smirk on Butcher’s face, along with the pointed finger. “Say, can I have my old job back now?” Pauling’s nose scrunches up and her brows furrow. Her arms go up in the air, as exasperation sets in. “Fine! Why not!” Butcher’s shaking hand changes from a pointed finger to an open hand, smiling as she awaits a hand shake. The force of Pauling’s exasperation makes her flinch as their hands wave in the air. Promptly, and pleasantly for once that day, Butcher passes out.


End file.
